Schrader Gets Official Boot

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Studio announces director's removal from the Exorcist prequel.

By Paul Davidson

Morgan Creek Productions confirmed this week that Paul Schrader has been removed from the post of director for the work that remains to be done on Exorcist: The Beginning. In a press release given to CaptainHowdy.com, an Exorcist fan site, the studio stated that Schrader's position was terminated due to "creative differences". The release tip-toes around what has become something of a fiasco, and it does not elaborate on why Morgan Creek disliked Schrader's work.

The news, however, comes as no surprise, since Schrader had already stated publicly that his backers were unhappy with his movie. The way he tells the story, the executives wanted "turning heads and projectile vomit" instead of psychological horror. In fact, Schrader claimed that the studio hadn't even read his script.

And while the director is convinced he's created a fine film, Caleb Carr, who wrote the screenplay, says "good riddance" to the departing filmmaker.

"All this crap about Morgan Creek wanting a conventional horror movie is just that: crap made up by Schrader to cover his ass, or rather to cover his lackluster cut. The only moments of what seems cheap physical horror were actually Paul's inept shooting of more subtly horrific stuff; but Morgan Creek didn't want those scenes even cheaper, they wanted them refined," Carr told Horror Express in an interview.

Carr continued, "Schrader's 'rewrite' consisted, literally, of taking out some key dialogue scenes that he thought were 'excessive' (meaning he couldn't stage them), and adding a couple of walk-on characters in an effort to get himself a writing credit....In the future, I'd hope that he would have more respect for the work of others than to treat it as a tool with which to gain his private, unconnected, pragmatic goals."

Most likely, the loss of Schrader and the new direction of the film will require filming of unshot scenes and an extensive re-editing of the film. No one has been officially brought in to take on the task as yet. Morgan Creek is still aiming for an early 2004 release of the film.